Congress win in prestige Kasba Peth battle boosts MVA, sets alarm bells ringing in BJP-Shinde Sena

The BJP’s defeat in Kasba, its bastion for 28 years, was perceived in the state political circles as a warning sign for the ruling coalition of the saffron party and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena in the run-up to the upcoming civic elections as well as the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

Aware of the significance of the Kasba result, the BJP had made the bypoll a prestige battle, putting in all its efforts to retain the seat.

In his reaction over the BJP’s defeat in Kasba, senior party leader and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis said, “It is a setback as results are not to our expectations. We will have to do serious introspection to ascertain where we lacked.”

From the beginning, the Kasba Peth bypoll had appeared to be a tricky affair for the BJP amid the perceived resentment among the upper caste Brahmin community, which makes up for 30 per cent of the seat’s voters, with the party.

The Kasba Peth bypoll was necessitated following the demise of the BJP’s

sitting MLA Mukta Tilak, a descendant of Lokmanya Tilak. The Tilak family was expecting a ticket for one of its members – Mukta’s husband Shailesh Tilak or their son Kunal Tilak – for contesting the bypoll. However, the BJP decided not to give the ticket to any Tilak family member, fielding instead a local party face Hemant Rasne as its candidate. The party leadership weighed Rasne’s OBC caste as a factor to counter Dhangekar, who is also an OBC leader.

However, even before the campaign for the Kasba bypoll had started, anonymous placards expressing anger against the BJP for denying ticket to a Brahmin candidate sprung up in Pune.

The BJP went out of its way to contest the bypoll in Kasba though, deploying its half a dozen leaders for campaigning in its every ward. At least two cabinet ministers, Girish Mahajan and Ravindra Chavan, were also stationed in Pune for the purpose.

Besides, during his three-day visit to Maharashtra recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah also held a meeting with the state leaders to review the bypoll preparations.

Fadnavis visited Kasba Peth at least half-a-dozen times to campaign for the party’s candidate and resolve any problems.

Commenting on the BJP’s setback, state party chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said, “There was no intra-party problem in Kasba Peth. It is a fact Congress polled more votes than BJP. We will do introspection. We will take remedial measures.”

In its campaigning, the BJP played its Hindutva card besides using the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi but could not appease the voters.

The Kasba Peth seat has always seen a keen contest between the BJP and the Congress. It has been a BJP bastion since 1995, with party leader Girish Bapat winning it for five times consecutively since 1995. After Bapat won from the Pune Lok Sabha seat in 2019, the Kasba seat was won by Mukta Tilak on the BJP’s ticket.

“The Kasba bypoll has proved that the MVA unitedly can defeat the BJP-led alliance in the coming elections,” said Leader of Opposition and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar. The MVA comprises of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).

BJP leader and state minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, “One seat win for both BJP-Shiv Sena and MVA has set the ground for the next Assembly election. It has made both sides to work hard to win confidence of voters till next election.”

Mungantiwar was referring to the outcome of the other bypoll in the neighbouring Chinchwad constituency, where the BJP’s Ashwini Jagtap edged out NCP candidate Nana Kate by over 23,000 votes.